A Home at the End of the World
by ariel2me
Summary: Written for the Stannis FicArt Week prompt "Stannis at Shireen's wedding."


**Prompt for Stannis FicArt Week: Stannis** **at Shireen's wedding**

The wedding dress made her look more vulnerable than she truly was. Silk, lace, pleats and ornate embroideries, more elaborate than anything Shireen had ever worn in her life. Stannis disliked the dress from the first moment he set eyes on it.

"Mother likes it," Shireen said with a shrug. "A wedding dress should be elaborate and extravagant."

"Your mother's words, or yours?"

"Be nice," Shireen admonished her father. "Mother is not happy about the choice of the groom. The least we could do is let her have her way about the wedding."

"It's strange, I do not remember your mother favoring extravagant dresses for her own wedding." Selyse's wedding dress had been simple and plain, Stannis remembered. He had approved of that.

Shireen looked at her father meaningfully. They both knew full well what Selyse's response would be. "Shireen is the Crown Princess and heir to the throne. She deserves only the best," Selyse would say, as she had done countless times before.

Stannis was holding the maiden cloak, the one he would be removing from his daughter during the wedding ceremony. Black and gold, the color of House Baratheon, embroidered with crowned stags, the maiden cloak felt heavy on Stannis' hands. He moved closer towards Shireen and draped the cloak over her, his hand fumbling while fastening the clasp to secure the cloak. Shireen waited patiently for her father to complete the task.

"I don't see the point of an elaborate wedding dress," Stannis grumbled, still trying to fasten the clasp. "Once I have removed the maiden cloak, Devan will drape you with the bridal cloak. The dress will only be seen for mere minutes."

"There's still the feast," Shireen replied. "I will not be wearing any cloak during the feast."

She will not be wearing anything at all for the bedding. His daughter will be naked. The girl who once scolded Patchface severely for accidentally pulling on her dress while they were playing hide-and-seek at Aegon's Garden will be fully naked on her wedding night. Stannis tried to banish that thought from his head, to no avail.

"It is what every bride has to go through on her wedding night. Shireen should be no exception," Selyse had announced firmly when Stannis told her they should dispense with the bedding ritual, where the bride and the groom were stripped of all their clothing in full view of all the guests, and carried upstairs to their wedding bed naked.

Stannis frowned. Considering the humiliation they both suffered at their own wedding, he thought Selyse would agree with him on this matter.

"Don't you dare give me that look!" Selyse turned to him, looking furious. "Don't you dare judge me as if I do not care for my daughter, as if I do not have her best interest at heart. This _is_ for Shireen's best interest. She will be ruling over these people one day. She cannot afford to show them any weaknesses, anything that could make them say that she is not worthy to be their queen. If you dispense with the bedding ritual, you know full well what will happen. Tongues would start wagging that the Crown Princess has something to hide. Perhaps she is disfigured in more than just her face. Perhaps she is barren and will not be able to bear a child. Are you purposely trying to make things harder for Shireen?"

"Of course not!" It was Stannis' turn to be outraged. That was never his intention. He was merely trying to spare their daughter the humiliation they themselves had gone through.

"Let's not quarrel, my lord husband," Selyse said in a more conciliatory tone. "We both want the best for Shireen." She paused, before continuing in a barely audible voice, "At least Shireen does not have a brother who would spoil things for her on her wedding night."

Stannis did not appreciate being reminded of Robert and his shameful conduct. But he wondered if Selyse had not been right after all, about the bedding ritual.

To his surprise, his lord Hand (and father of the groom) was of the same mind as Selyse on the matter. "I understand your misgivings, Your Grace, and your desire to protect your daughter. But I agree with Her Grace the queen on this matter. Dispensing with the bedding ritual will only serve to make things more difficult for Princess Shireen down the road," Davos said. He hesitated, before asking, "May I be blunt, Your Grace?"

Stannis scoffed. "Have you ever been anything other than blunt with me, Davos? Speak, my lord Hand."

"Princess Shireen is not a child. She has not been a child for a long time. It is time you stop treating her like one, Your Grace."

Stannis opened his mouth to protest, but could not find the right words to register his displeasure. He dismissed Davos from his presence with barely a glance.

Shireen herself broached the subject with him cautiously after a Small Council meeting. Stannis had commanded her to start attending the meetings about a year ago. She was old enough to learn what ruling was, he thought.

_How could Davos accuse me of treating Shireen like a child? It was entirely my decision for Shireen to attend the Small Council meetings. No one suggested it, not Davos, not Selyse. Not even Shireen herself._

"I hear you are planning to dispense with the bedding ritual for my wedding, Father," Shireen asked him, after everyone else had left the room.

"I haven't decided," Stannis replied curtly. He stared at her. "What do you think?"

"It would be disastrous. You should not do it," Shireen declared decisively. She had grown bolder with him over the years, no longer the shy, fearful child who trembled at the sight of her father, the little girl who would never dream of saying a word to her father unless it was in reply to his queries.

In his own way, he was proud of her boldness, even of her defiance towards him in defense of the things she truly believed in. Underneath the calm and placid exterior, she could be as stubborn and unyielding as he was, when she thought she was in the right.

But that pride also did not stop his flashes of anger and annoyance when she _did_ disagree with him, or when she tried to defy his commands.

"Looking forward to be stripped naked for all to see, are you?" Stannis scoffed.

Her face flushed with anger. "That is beneath you, Father. I thought you truly wanted to know my thoughts about the subject. I didn't know you were only interested in mocking me."

_Mocking her?_ That was the last thing he wanted to do. He was only trying to stop her from being mocked by others. "Shireen. I never meant …" He paused, uncertain how to continue. He gave up after a while and turned his attention to the papers on the table, wishing that they had never started this conversation. The silence went on and on, neither of them wanting to be the first to break it.

"Father?"

Memories faded, and the sound of his daughter's voice transported him to the here and now, where his hands were still fumbling with the clasp. Stannis let out an impatient groan. Shireen laughed and whispered, "Take your time."

He finally succeeded in fastening the clasp on Shireen's maiden cloak. He stepped back and looked at her, _really_ looked at her, for the first time in a really long while.

"Are you pleased, Father?" Shireen sounded nervous, as if she was that little girl again.

She had asked him that same question the day _she_ had draped a cloak over him, when he came back to Castle Black after the hellish march and the battle for Winterfell. She was waiting for him with her mother and Lady Melisandre, Devan standing by her side. Her right hand was clasping Devan's hand, and the other hand was holding a thick wool cloak.

She burst into tears when Stannis came to her. "I thought you were dead."

"The heir to the Iron Throne does not cry, Shireen," Stannis replied.

She wiped her tears away quickly. "Are you pleased, Father? Are you pleased that you won the battle?"

He was exhausted, relieved, furious, betrayed, doubtful, defiant, and a hundred other things all at once. _Pleased_ was not one of those things, nowhere near being one of the things he was feeling at the moment. His daughter's face looking up at him, however, was so solemn, so heartbreakingly earnest, that despite himself, he replied, "I am pleased to be back."

This time, before he could reply to Shireen's question, Selyse came bustling in, reminding them that they were late and the guests would be waiting, and hurrying them to the coach that would be taking them to the Great Sept of Baelor. Shireen took her mother's hand and whispered something in her ear. Selyse smiled, that rare smile reserved only for her daughter and no one else, and whispered something back to Shireen. Stannis walked out the door and waited for them to emerge from the room. They came out a few minutes later, holding hands.

On the way to the Sept, Selyse kept fretting about the feast. The feast had been another disagreeable thing about the wedding for Stannis, in a list of many, many disagreeable things that were making him grind his teeth at night. The preparation for the feast had been another source of contention between Stannis and Selyse. Selyse had planned for such extravagance as a thousand invited guests and a ten-course meal, all wasteful spending as far as Stannis was concerned.

"I will not empty the crown's coffer for frivolous and extravagant purposes like Robert did!" Stannis said heatedly.

"Your brother wasted the crown's money on pointless tourneys and feasts. This is your daughter's wedding! The wedding of the Crown Princess, heir to the Iron Throne. Shireen will only be married once."

In the end, Stannis allowed her five hundred guests and a five-course meal – still too extravagant and wasteful in his opinion, but they had to take into account the foreign guests as well. Rebuilding good relations with other kingdoms had been one of the things on his list of priorities when Stannis ascended the throne. Not because Stannis had any feeling of kindness or goodwill towards mankind, but because he was well-aware that good neighbors would make for poor enemies, and vice-versa.

With regards to the feast, that had been the end of the matter, as far as Stannis was concerned. But apparently Selyse was still bitter about his decision.

"I remember when the three of us rode in this same coach from Red Keep to the Great Sept for Father's coronation," Shireen interrupted her mother's fussing about the feast.

"Your father refused to have a feast at all for his coronation," Selyse replied bitterly. "I suppose we should be grateful he's even allowing five hundred guests for your wedding."

Stannis held his tongue with great difficulty.

"The only people I truly want for my wedding are both here," Shireen said, her eyes darting from one parent to the next.

"Now that's a lie, Shireen. You'd want your groom most of all, not your father and mother. Every bride does on her wedding day," Selyse replied.

Stannis raised an eyebrow. _Even you, Selyse? _He was doubtful that had been the case.

"Yes, even me, Stannis," Selyse said. "I was no different from other brides on my wedding day."

Selyse must have caught the look of astonishment on Stannis' face, for she continued, "You don't have to say it out loud. I know what you were thinking."

"Well then, if you already know what's on my mind, there is no point telling you anything," Stannis said.

"Not that you ever do," Selyse snapped.

Instead of looking sad and uncomfortable like she usually did when her parents were arguing, Shireen burst into laughter this time. "I love you. Both of you," she whispered before stepping out of the coach.

Devan was already waiting at the altar with the High Septon and his brothers Stanny and Steff, who were holding the bridal cloak embroidered with the sigil of House Seaworth. Selyse made her way to the front of the sept and took her seat, her ladies-in-waiting escorting her. She nodded stiffly to Davos and Marya as she passed them, her face stern and unsmiling.

Selyse had disliked the fact that Shireen was marrying a Seaworth. Her animosity towards Davos had not abated much over the years. But Devan was not just a Seaworth, he was also Shireen's loyal friend and companion since childhood, a boy who had been her trusted and valued ally for many, many years. And it was Shireen who decided, Shireen who chose her groom, not Stannis; so in the end, Selyse had reluctantly resigned herself to the match.

"I'm doing this for my daughter," she had warned Stannis. "Not for you and your precious onion knight and your foolish dreams of joining your two Houses together."

There _was_ no dream, Stannis protested. He and Davos had known nothing, planned nothing, dreamed of nothing. Shireen and Devan had come to them of their own accord. The plans, the dreams – all of it belonged to Shireen and Devan, not Stannis and Davos.

"Davos and I are _not_ foolish and sentimental fools like Robert and Ned Stark were," Stannis insisted.

"That's what you'd _like_ to believe," Selyse said pointedly. "You have a daughter who wants to please her father, and Davos has a son who wants to pleasehis father. Figure out the rest yourself."

Selyse was wrong. Her accusations were completely unfounded, Stannis decided. He had seen Shireen and Devan together, had seen the way they were with each other. That was more than merely trying to please their fathers. There was affection there, perhaps even love.

Not that Stannis would be able to tell if it _was_ love. Love was not his purview, never his specialties, a mirage forever out of his reach.

Moments before he was about to walk his daughter to the altar, doubt suddenly reared its head and would not let go. "Shireen," he started saying, in a desperate tone.

Shireen interrupted, before he could continue. "We love each other. We're not doing this for you, or for his father. Don't worry."

The walk to the altar was over all too soon. He wished they had a longer distance to travel. He barely heard the High Septon's words and prayers, and Shireen had to touch his hand before he realized that it was time for him to remove her maiden's cloak. His hands did not fumble undoing the clasp on her throat, and her removed Shireen's maiden cloak swiftly enough. Perhaps too swiftly, for the two youngest Seaworth boys seemed startled and not ready as they hastily handed over the bridal cloak to Devan. Devan glanced at Stannis as if waiting for his permission. Stannis gave him a curt nod, and Devan draped the bridal cloak over Shireen. Devan's hands were steady as he fastened the clasp, and when Shireen blushed red and could not hide her smile as Devan's fingers grazed her throat and lingered there for longer than strictly necessary, Stannis knew that Shireen had been telling him the truth, moments before he walked her to the altar. She was not merely trying to give him false comfort or phony reassurance.

Stannis and the Seaworth boys left the altar and took their seats, while the High Septon droned on and on about the sanctity of marriage. Finally it was time for the bride and the groom to recite their vows.

"With this kiss I pledge my love." Devan's voice was clear and unhesitant.

"With this kiss I pledge my love." Shireen's reply was equally without hesitation.

They kissed, the bride and the groom, his daughter and Davos' son, childhood friends who were no longer children. Stannis glanced at Davos and saw that he was teary-eyed, his hand tightly clasped with Marya's, who was trying to stifle a sob.

Selyse would find that exasperating, Stannis thought. She disliked overt display of emotions, especially in public. She was not all that different from him in that regard. But when Stannis turned to his wife, instead of the stony-faced expression he was expecting, he saw that she had a smile on her face.

She had smiled at their wedding too, when they were dancing. She had not smiled all that often after that night. He was relieved, in a way. Her smiles only served as a painful reminder to Stannis that as they were dancing and she was smiling downstairs, Robert and Delena were breaking in their marriage bed upstairs.

She was the only one who had truly seen the worst in him. All his sins and betrayals, she had seen it all, known it all. Even Davos - his loyal, trusted onion knight – even Davos had not seen everything, in a way had _refused_ to truly see everything. He had seen the worst in her too, all her misdirected fury and her irrational fear and her misplaced contempt. There had been indifference, disappointment, anger and disillusionment aplenty in their marriage. Yet here they were, still here, still together. In a way.

_We are the survivors of our own sins_. They were each other's final refuge, a home at the end of the world, even if it was not a very warm and comforting home. Perhaps that was the best either of them could hope for, being the kind of people that they were. He had no illusion that a different wife could have made him any happier. He was who he was, and at the end of the day, that mattered a whole lot more than who he married.

"Shireen will have more. Much more," Selyse whispered to him, as if she had guessed what was in his mind.

Shireen had come from their union. _Our daughter._ That was something worth holding on too, even if it was quite far from love.


End file.
